Getting More Retweets on Your Twitter Posts

Why you ask? Because we’re super nice people looking for some good karma. And a little blue birdie told us you really wanted to know.

Ready? Here it is: pic.twitter.com.

And here’s the decoded version of that answer: tweets using photos (meaning photos uploaded and embedded via pic.twitter.com) are 94% more likely to get retweeted. But here’s the kicker: not all photos are equal. Photos that are not embedded through twitter—Instagram photos or Facebook photos—are actually about 40% less likely to be clicked.

Why? Photos embedded with pic.Twitter.com show directly in a user’s stream, meaning it only requires one click to view the photo (and the photo opens up within Twitter). Whereas Instagram and Facebook photos open in a new window, which takes a few moments to load. Precious moments. Ones that most users aren’t willing to spend waiting for your company’s photo to load (even if it is really, really cool).

So, next time your marketing gurus are planning on sharing a photo via Twitter, advise them to click that magical little camera icon on the far left of the “Compose new Tweet…” box and behold the retweetage (yes, it’s a word—because we say so).